How Are Things Over At The Pocketbook Business Complex? Great! If You Can Get There!

The two "temporary" (there's that word again!) A-frame signs that we've been so fortunate to have grace the northwest corner of 6th & Warren 24/7 for the past several months are associated with two businesses at the complex three blocks to the north. Yesterday's wind was not nice to those signs, even the still-standing metal one that weighs at least 40 pounds. Upright or not, the signs are a clear code violation.

September 11th

September 6th.  FU, too!  Even the
new 4-foot-wide sidewalk in the
background is a code violation.

There is no such thing as a designated truck delivery or loading area for the Pocketbook business complex.  Not on 6th, not on Prospect, nor on Washington.  But that is where you will regularly find all sorts of trucks making deliveries, particularly on 6th in and next to the off-limits fire zone, where trucks can regularly be found parked in all or most of the southbound lane.  (Well-trained truck drivers know never to park in a fire zone even for a few moments.)  We have Kamal Johnson and his wonderful choice for the head of the Hudson Planning Board, Theresa Joyner, to thank for this dangerous, ugly, and disrespectful mess.  There's never been space for an appropriate truck delivery area on Washington or Prospect, and one on 6th would be a stretch. Nevertheless, the Pocketbook's plans submitted to the HPB show a "proposed truck delivery zone" on 6th just south of Washington that would have removed at least two public parking spaces. The message was clear:  Here is where we might have our delivery trucks park so that they aren't parked in the traffic lane!  That proposed site never materialized, and Theresa Joyner was fine with the Pocketbook's decision, as was Craig Haigh, directly across the street in his Code Enforcement Department's offices.  What the hell does "proposed" mean, anyway?  You might do it?  You -- not the city -- will decide if it's to be done or needs to be done?  And if you decided against your own proposal, what is plan B?  No truck delivery area at all, on-street or off?!!!!  Catch as catch can?!!!!  Do NO PARKING signs not apply to the Pocketbook business complex?

Last week, for the second time this year, I came across a delivery truck parked on the side of 6th Street where no one is ever supposed to park even though the curb is not painted yellow.  In fact, the truck remained parked for at least a half hour with its rear inches from one of three NO PARKING ANY TIME signs that were recently installed in front of (2) and adjacent to (1) our police captain's wide property.  There was another NO PARKING ANY TIME sign directly in front of the truck, no more than 10 feet away.  As of a few months ago, there are 6 NO PARKING ANY TIME signs on the east side of 6th Street from Prospect to Washington, and not one of them got the attention of that driver! Go figure!  What would Captain Miller have done had he had seen what I did?  Call HPD?  Call the Parking Bureau?  Call his neighbor Sean Roland over at the Pocketbook?  Nothing?

This food distribution company's trucks are a 
common sight on 6th and elsewhere.  Beginning
this year, of course.

Deliveries being made to the Pocketbook business complex are a regular sight around the neighborhood these days, with trucks arriving, trucks parked, trucks idling, trucks turning around, trucks driving on narrow one-way residential streets, trucks lost, and trucks leaving.  Hooray!  Just what we all hoped would come our way someday!  We all feel so blessed, and our lungs and ears really appreciate it as well.

A few weeks ago

Alcohol delivery last week, partially 
 in an optional NO PARKING ZONE

Delivery on Prospect, possibly because there 
were no available spaces on 6th or Washington.
The truck is in a handicap space.

Two Fridays ago, at 4:30 pm, I came across two party buses parked on Washington waiting for a group of well-dressed guests of the hotel mingling on the sidewalk to shuttle them to a wedding reception or party, likely at Basilica.  Both buses were parked several feet from the curb.  Moments after I took the picture below, the rear bus quickly pulled out in front of me as I tried to pass on my bicycle.  The driver, obviously in a rush to keep up with the other bus, either didn't see me or completely ignored me.  It was just another close call, which are getting more and more common these days.  Yes, even on (once) quiet little Washington Street.

Did Sean Roland and Gabe Katz tell the Planning Board years ago that party buses would be parking and driving on Washington Street to shuttle guests to parties around town?  Something tells me that Theresa Joyner never thought to ask.  Heck, it probably would have been fine with her anyway.  Where is Theresa these days?  Is she feeling any direct effects of her Planning Board's approval of the Pocketbook Hotel/business complex proposal?  Something tells me she is not.  Nor is Kamal Johnson.

NO PARKING?
HOW ABOUT NO STUPIDITY?